The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1887-07-21

1t is in the province Of the historian to
consider those events and those issues which
are of the past Upon the statesman and
the magazine and newspaper writer usually
deyolye the study and solution of the prob
lens Of the present. The disadvantages of
the contemporary have been very generally
recognized by the ablest minds, who have
turned for their fields Of study to times far
enough in the past to ensure the decay of
the animating prejudices and passions. 1t is
therefore with more than usual interest that
we study the work Of an historian Of ability,
who pauses to comment upon an issue that
is yet alive, upon struggle that is yet in
doubt. In his "History Of England in the
Eighteenth Century" Mr.. Lecky, the English
historian, has paused to express some views
on the question Of Home Rule. and the
events which are connected with it, The
merit OF Mr.. Lecky's work is very generally
recognized both in Europe and America; and
1t will be matter of regret on both CONT
nents that, in his consideration of this con-
temporary issue he has allowed him
self to be biased by contemporary
preJudices. He holds that the Irish
are wholly unified for the "plane of
democracy" into which Home Rule would
force them. VERY different conditions"
says Mr. Lecky's history, require very diff
erent types of administration, and, in Ire
land, the elements of self-government lie,
and always have lain, within higher plane
and more restricted circle than in England,
and the relations of classes and the condi-
tions Of opinion are incomparably less favor
able to popular institutions. A stronger and
frmer executive, mere restricted suffrage,
a greater concentration of power, a more
constant intervention Of government both in
the way of assistance and initiative and in
the way Of restriction and control are i'm
peratively required" The study Of the past
has revealed or suggested to Mr.. Lecky no
way of governing ireland except by
stronger and frmer executive. more re-
stricted suffrage" and the other means
which have kept Ireland hot bed Of
slumbering revolutions, and which the rank,
wealth and conservatism Of the England of
to-day are united in endeavoring to continue
Mr. Lecky takes this view because he does
not, he would have his readers understand,
believe the Irish capable of approaching any
government but that Of aristocratic domino
tion, or in other words, modified despotism.
"An amount of democracy" he says, (which
in one country leaves the main direction of
affairs in the hands of property and intelli.
genee, in another country virtually disfran
chses both, and establishes system of le-
galized plumber by transferring all controll-
ing authority to an ignorant and excitable
peasantry, guided and duped by demagogues,
place hunters, and knayes" Not only are
the Irish incapable of self government in Mr..
Lecky's opinion, but in his estimation also,
the statesmen who have embraced their
cause are as little capable of sincerity as the
politicians of the days of Walpole and New
castle were of incorruptibility. For raising
the cry Of the ''classes against the Masses"
Mr.. Gladstone is plainly. if not by name, held
up as an example of political depravity by
the historian who, in a disquisition on the
standard Of political morals writes that he
who VIII observe show cyncally the princi-
pies OF one year have sometimes been aban-
doned In the next; how recklessly prominent
politicians have sought to gain their ends by
setting the poor against the rich, and plant
ing in the nation deadly seeds Of class ami
mosities and cupidities, may well learn to